University of Memphis Athletics
Postgame Quotes
Dec 30, 2010 | Men's Basketball
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#22/21 Memphis (10-2) 88, Lipscomb (7-4) 70
December 30, 2010
FedExForum (Memphis, Tenn.)
Memphis Postgame Quotes
Memphis Head Coach Josh Pastner
Opening Statement
The guys came out and played a great game. That's the bottom line. My thing is we had 21 assists on 34 made field goals. We shot the ball great, and as I have told you many times, I felt like this team had a chance to be a better shooting team than we were last year. We hadn't shown that this year, but that was because we were trying to do everything on the first side. We want to do stuff on the second, third, or fourth side and increase our offensive efficiency. We really moved the ball well and had good production.
Josh Slater is a good player. Chris Crawford did an unbelievable job shutting (Slater) down, and Will Barton did a good job on (Jordan) Burgason. Joe Jackson, offensively, really got us going by finding the open guy. He had eight assists which is great. Wesley Witherspoon played like a pro tonight and like he is supposed to play. He was our best player tonight and I am proud of that.
Our shots were open shots tonight. I am proud of our team tonight, and that was a good win. They (Lipscomb) are probably an NCAA Tournament team because they will probably win their league.
Your team had 14 assists on the first 18 buckets. Talk about the ball movement tonight.
We moved the ball well, and I felt that we did a good job in practice last week. That was one of the things we talked about offensively in getting the ball to the second and third side and attack the defense. We can't come down and shoot on the first side of the offense. We have to move the ball, reverse it and shoot on the second and third side. We did a good job in translating practice to game tonight. I am really proud, very proud of the players tonight.
After a week layoff, you dominated the glass. Talk about the effort on the glass.
I am really proud of the rebounding battle. (Lipscomb) crashes the boards very well, and we were able to win the battle by plus 19. The only thing you can say that was bad was our turnovers. We had 18 turnovers, and a lot of those were unforced turnovers. We have to cut those down and do a better job on turnovers.
Lipscomb Head Coach Scott Sanderson
Opening Remarks They shot eight threes in the first half, and they jumped up, so obviously that hurt us. We wanted to play more zone, and in the few times we did play zone, we didn't rebound very well. We got crushed on the backboard.
About cutting the Memphis lead to five points
Well again, we haven't finished halves very well. You turn the ball over two straight times, they hit a three, hit another bucket and you are back to fighting a 10-point deficit. That is a big difference in the psyche of players' heads. We didn't finish the half very well.
When you get a five point game you have to grind it out. I think we had two turnovers they came down and got buckets off of both of them. Those type things, against a team like Memphis, are magnified.
About Memphis' three-point shooting
They shot it well, and they did a good job contesting our three-point shooting. We have got to get some more production off of our bench. We just aren't getting enough production from some of our bench players. We have to get a few more guys who could potentially play in (upcoming) league play.
About league play starting Monday night vs. Stetson
We have 18 league games coming up here, and our first two on the road. They are obviously going to be very challenging. We just need to get rested up, healed up a little bit and get ready for Monday night.
